IX

It was, then, to find Winifred that I joined the Gypsies. And yet I

will not deny that affinity with the kinsfolk of my ancestress

Fenella Stanley must have had something to do with this passage in my

eccentric life. That strain of Romany blood which, according to my

mother's theory, had much to do with drawing Percy Aylwin and Rhona

Boswell together, was alive and potent in my own veins.

But I must pause here to say a few words about Sinfi Lovell. Some of

my readers must have already recognised her as a famous character in

bohemian circles. Sinfi's father was a 'Griengro,' that is to say, a

horse-dealer. She was, indeed, none other than that 'Fiddling Sinfi'

who became famous in many parts of England and Wales as a violinist,

and also as the only performer on the old Welsh stringed instrument

called the 'crwth,' or cruth. Most Gypsies are musical, but Sinfi was

a genuine musical genius. Having become, through the good-nature of

Winifred's aunt Mrs. Davies, the possessor of a crwth, and having

been taught by her the unique capabilities of that rarely seen

instrument, she soon learnt the art of fascinating her Welsh patrons

by the strange, wild strains she could draw from it. This obsolete

six-stringed instrument (with two of the strings reaching beyond the

key-board, used as drones and struck by the thumb, the bow only being

used on the other four, and a bridge placed, not at right angles to

the sides of the instrument, but in an oblique direction), though in

some important respects inferior to the violin, is in other respects

superior to it. Heard among the peaks of Snowdon, as I heard them

during our search for Winifred, the notes of the crwth have a

wonderful wildness and pathos. It is supposed to have the power of

drawing the spirits when a maiden sings to its accompaniment a

mysterious old Cymric song or incantation.

Among her own people it was as a seeress, as an adept in the real

dukkering--the dukkering for the Romanies, as distinguished from the

false dukkering, the dukkering for the Gorgios--that Sinfi's fame was

great. She had travelled over nearly all England--wherever, in short,

there were horse-fairs--and was familiar with London, where in the

studios of artists she was in request as a face model of

extraordinary value. Nor were these all the characteristics that

distinguished her from the common herd of Romany chies: she was one

of the few Gypsies of either sex who could speak with equal fluency

both the English and Welsh Romanes, and she was in the habit

sometimes of mixing the two dialects in a most singular way. Though

she had lived much in Wales, and had a passionate love of Snowdon,

she belonged to a famous branch of the Lovells whose haunt had for

ages been in Wales and also the East Midlands, and she had caught

entirely the accent of that district.

Among artists in London, as I afterwards learnt, she often went by

the playful name of 'Lady Sinfi Lovell,' for the following reason:

She was extremely proud, and believed the 'Kaulo Camloes' to

represent the aristocracy not only of the Gypsies, but of the world.

Moreover, she had of late been brought into close contact with a

certain travelling band of Hungarian Gypsy-musicians, who visited

England some time ago. Intercourse with these had fostered her pride

in a curious manner. The musicians are the most intelligent and most

widely-travelled not only of the Hungarian Gypsies, but of all the

Romany race. They are darker than the sátoros czijányok, or tented

Gypsies. The Lovells being the darkest of all the Gypsies of Great

Britain (and the most handsome, hence called Kaulo Camloes), it was

easy to make out an affinity closer than common between the Lovells

and the Hungarian musicians. Sinfi heard much talk among the

Hungarians of the splendours of the early leaders of the continental

Romanies. She was told of Romany kings, dukes, and counts. She

accepted, with that entire faith which characterised her, the stories

of the exploits of Duke Michael, Duke Andreas, Duke Panuel, and the

rest. It only needed a hint from one of her continental friends, that

her father, Panuel Lovell, was probably a descendant of Duke Panuel,

for Sinfi to consider him a Duke. From that moment she felt as

strongly as any Gorgie ever felt the fine sentiment expressed in the

phrase, _noblesse oblige_; and to hear her say, 'I'm a duke's chavi

[daughter], and mustn't do so and so,' was a delightful and

refreshing experience to me. Poor Panuel groaned under these honours,

for Sinfi insisted now on his dressing in a brown velveteen coat,

scarlet waistcoat with gold coins for buttons, and the high-crowned,

ribbon-bedizened hat which prosperous Gypsies once used to wear. She

seemed to consider that her sister Videy (whose tastes were low for a

Welsh Gypsy) did not belong to the high aristocracy, though born of

the same father and mother. Moreover, 'dook' in Romanes means spirit,

ghost, and very likely Sinfi found some power of association in this

fact; for Videy was a born sceptic.

One of the special charms of Gypsy life is that a man fully admitted

into the Romany brotherhood can be on terms of close intimacy with a

Gypsy girl without awaking the smallest suspicion of love-making or

flirtation; at least it was so in my time.

Under my father's will, a considerable legacy had come to me, and,

after going to London to receive this, I made the circuit of the West

of England with Sinfi's people. No sign whatever of Winifred did I

find in any of the camps. I was for returning to Wales, where my

thoughts always were; but I could not expect Sinfi to leave her

family, so I started thither alone, leaving my waggon in their

charge. Before I reached Wales, however, I met in the eastern part of

Cheshire, not far from Moreton Hall, some English Lees, with whom I

got into talk about the Hungarian musicians, who were here then on

another flying visit to England. Something that dropped from one of

the Lees as to the traditions and superstitions of the Hungarian

Gypsies with regard to people suffering from dementia set me

thinking; and at last I came to the conclusion that if I really

believed Winifred to have taken shelter among the Romanies, it would

be absurd not to follow up a band like these Hungarians. Accordingly

I changed my course, and followed them up. On coming upon them in a

famous English camping-place I found the Lovells and the Boswells.

Rhona, dressed in gorgeous attire, evidently purchased at some

second-hand shop, was rehearsing the shawl-dance for a great occasion

at a neighbouring fair. But no Winifred.

My health was now much impaired by sleeplessness (the inevitable

result of my anxiety), and by a narcotic, which from the commencement

of my troubles I had been in the habit of taking in ever-increasing

doses--a terrible narcotic, one of whose multitudinous effects is

that of sending all the patient's thoughts circling around one

central idea like planets round the sun. Painful and agonising as had

been my suspense,--my oscillation between hope and dread,--during my

wanderings with the Lovells, these wanderings had not been without

their moments of comfort, for all of which I had been indebted to

Sinfi. She would sit with me in an English lane, under a hedge or

tree, on a balmy summer evening, or among the primroses, wild

hyacinths, buttercups and daisies of the sweet meadows, chattering

her reminiscences of Winifred. She would mostly end by saying:

'Winnie was very fond on ye, brother, and we shall find her yit. The

Golden Hand on Snowdon wasn't there for nothink. The dukkeripen says

you'll marry her yit; a love like yourn can follow the tryenest

patrin as ever wur laid.' Then she would play on her crwth and say,

'Ah, brother, I shall be able to make this crwth bring ye a sight o'

Winnie's livin' mullo if she's alive, and there ain't a sperrit of

the hills as wouldn't answer to it.'

Of Gorgios generally, however, Sinfi had at heart a feeling somewhat

akin to dread. I could not understand it.

'Why do you dislike the Gorgios, Sinfi?' I said to her one day on

Lake Ogwen, after the return of the Lovells to Wales. We were

trout-fishing from a boat anchored to a heavy block of granite which

she had fastened to a rope and heaved overboard with a strength that

would have surpassed that of most Englishwomen.

'That's nuther here nor there, brother,' she replied mysteriously. So

months and months dragged by, and brought no trace of Winifred.